MENSTRUAL HYGIENE IN ADOLESCENT GIRLS
July 8, 2026
SMART LOVE
A) Parenting Teens: Still A Challenge
Teenage is conceptualised as a journey from Childhood to adulthood, in the same way parenting teenagers can also be considered as a journey; to guide a child to adulthood, to ingrain values, to help negotiate social relationships.
To see new ideas, deals, goals & independence emerge in a child can be the adventure of a life time like any other adventure; the thrill is in the journey. Challenges conquered sweeten the success while failure is in part unavoidable. No one can be know how the balance of success & failure measures out until the journey is complete. As long as the journey continues there is hope: a chance to teen failures into success, weakness into strengths. The challenges are unique to each traveller. Even the same parents experience difference challengers as each child is guided through teenage.
Parents who accept that children will sometimes act in ways that are inappropriate or undesirable, but prepare them for discipline their behaviour, may discover that the joy is the journey & heaven is found along the way.
All parents want to raise a happy, successful child, but there is little agreement about how best to reach this goal.
As parents, teacher we all try in vain to teach adolescents to obey adults & never to speak against. But what we need to teach them is to express their disagreement openly & boldly, but using only appropriate language. In a given situation if they are confused in choosing right path, teach them to seek guidance & never so act upon instincts alone.
But do parents really get a chance & if so, do they bother to inculcate the right spirit in their children; in a manner that adolescent would appreciate? There are three major areas that are crucial to the parent teen relationship- connection, monitoring & psychological autonomy.
First, a sense of connection between a teenager & parents provides a backdrop against which all other interactions take place. If parent – adolescent connection is consistent,positive & characterised by warmth, kindness, love & stability, children are more likely to flourish socially. They are more likely to be self confident & co-operative in their relationships with others.
In addition to sense of connection between parents – adolescent, the monitoring process is crucial to successful parenting. In the context of warm, kind relationship, parental monitoring of teen activities, friend circle should come across as caring rather than intrusive.
Finally, parents need to encourage the development of psychological autonomy in their adolescents. Encouraging independent thinking and the expression of original ideas & beliefs, validating feelings and expressing unconditional love are the ways to nurture ‘psychological autonomy’.
The opposite of this is psychological control which is characterised by changing the subject, making personal attacks, withdrawing love or inducing guilt to constrain intellectual, emotional or psychological expression by the adolescent that is incongruent with the parent’s way of thinking.
The combination of connection, monitoring & psychological autonomy may sound simple, but the simplicity of the directions can be frustrating to navigators when they are lost. Translating general ideas into specific behaviours & then into patterns of interaction can be challenge; especially if one or both parties are already entrenched in less productive patterns of interaction. The task of establishing a warm, caring, positive relationship characterised by kindness with a teenager whose favourite phases are ‘you just don’t understand’ and ‘leave me alone’, can be daunting. While it is true that one of the main developmental tasks of adolescence to separate from parents’ image & that peer influence takes on greater & greater importance during these years, there is still no substitute for the parent – teen relationship.
It is important to spent time with teenagers to enhance connection & to get involved in recreational activities with them is a way for parents to get connected regularly in a pleasant setting. Spending leisure time together also gives parents a leg- up on the monitoring process.
B) Discipline: The Carver of The Bright Future!
Although discipline is genuinely unpleasant for all, if parent child relationship is built on a foundation of warmth & kindness, it can withstand unpleasantness of discipline. Parents need to remember that the prime directive of adolescence i.e. ‘independence’ prohibits teenagers from admitting that having parents set firm boundaries is actually reassuring. Some of the odiousness of enforcing rules can be eliminated by engaging children in the process of setting the rules and assigning the consequences before the rules are broken.
It is quite natural on the part of parents to react emotionally when children break rules if they perceive it as an assault on parental authority. The temptation to react emotionally can be alleviated if they consider, it is by the authority to the family as a whole that the rules were established. Helping to set the rules may not dissolute teenagers from breaking them sometimes, but it can help parents to avoid a power- struggle with their teenagers.
Another big trap in parent teen relationship is the confusion of psychological control (the opposite of psychological autonomy) with discipline. Too many parents get cough up in focussing on controlling their child; believing that controlling the way their child thinks will translate into controlling what their child does.
There is a fine line here; parents need to help children make sense of the world by offering explanations and /or interpretations of events. It is when these parental offerings take on the tone of exclusiveness – when parents cannot respectfully consider and discuss the teenager’s interpretation of his or her own experience – that psychological control has taken over.
And thus the adolescent starts going into his shell during such situations adding bitterness even more bitterness to their behaviour.
Thus when discipline becomes a matter of calmly enforcing family rules about behaviours, many of the problems associated with ‘psychological control’ are alleviated. Psychologically controlled teenagers like to be in their shell as the surrounding is never favorable to them. They are always under stress giving rise to behaviour problems & conduct disorders. If not taken care in time may lead to serious consequence like suicidal attempts.
Recently there was an article in India Today, as per the study carried out by the department of child & adolescent psychology, AIIMS; India is having top position for the incidence of teenage suicide.
In today’s fast world stress management in teens is getting difficult for the parents who are already under stress in their day-to-day life. Most teens experience more stress when they perceive a situation as dangerous, difficult, or painful and they do not have the resource to cope. Some teens become overloaded with stress which may lead to anxiety, withdrawal, aggression, physical illness or poor coping skills such as drug or alcohol use.
Parents can help their teens by recognising that, the teens is under stress & taking help as and when required. Parents need to monitor if stress is affecting teen’s health, behaviours, thoughts or feeling, listening carefully & watch for overloading; learning stress management skills, supporting by involvement in sports & other prosocial activities; asking help of adolescent health professionals are a few steps to help your teens to come out of their shell by breaking it.
Hence the compassionate alternative to carve up your child a better person & yourself a better parent is “SMART LOVE”.
SMART LOVE
Smart love is supposed to be a sure-fire recipe for successful parenting. Whether you are a parent of a new born or an adolescent, the parent of one child or five, you may worry about making the correct response to your child when she cries, makes demands, is frightened, wants constant cuddling & attention or won’t do what is good for her.
As parents & as health professionals we are living & struggling with these same fundamental issues. The discoveries made in the course of decades by researching the subject of the true nature of the child as well as the question of necessary ingredients for a child’s healthy emotional development, give us a new understanding of children, childhood & adolescence, which is turn give us to create guidelines that all parents can use to parent lovingly but knowledgeable & effectively, hence the term SMART LOVE.
The basic principles of the Smart Love approach for parenting are:
A Child Is a Child
Learn to see the world through your child's eyes. Give up the illusion that your child is a miniature adult. You promote a child's growth better by embracing immaturity than by fighting it.
Foster Optimism
A child brings loads of hope and good cheer into this world. Teach your child to look life's obstacles squarely in the eye, but never, ever scare your child into becoming a pessimist.
Cultivate Inner Happiness
The greatest gift you can give your child is a sturdy fortress of inner happiness. Outward happiness always will be fleeting and uncertain without this inward foundation.
You Are Your Child's Ideal
If you come across as perpetually unhappy with your child, always acting tough and talking negatively, then your child will expect and want that unhappiness--and will do whatever it takes to get more of it. Do not teach your child to seek unhappiness.
Happy Children Behave
Parenting is not "behavior modification." Cultivating your child's inner happiness is what really leads to good behavior. Chances are your child will behave better if you spend less time trying to change his or her behavior.
Provide Quantity Time
On one side are all the reasons you do not have any to give. On the other are the great rewards you and your child will reap when you manage to do so. Make the effort. Quality Time does not make up for a lack of Quantity Time.
Attention Breeds Independence
Lots of loving attention will make your child independent. Let go of those worries that you will spoil your child, or make your child needy and dependent, by providing too much attention.
Capture the Middle Ground
No parent should feel stuck between being a pushover and a disciplinarian, between letting everything go and relying on the "quick fix" of discipline. You can find a happy medium.
Use Your Head and Trust Your Heart
Always remember: Your parenting instincts are good ones. If your head tells you that tough discipline is necessary, but your heart is not in it, take heed. The foremost expert on parenting is the one you see in the mirror.
In short, parents who concentrate on trying to control their child’s behaviour rather than trying to control their child are going have much more success & a lot less grief. Parents who give teenagers their love, time, boundaries & encouragement to think for themselves may find that they actually enjoy their children growing up. As they watch their sons & daughters grow in independence, make decision & develop into young adults, they may find that the child they have reared is, like the breathtaking view of the newborn they held for the first time, even better then they could have imagined.